Not Another Bleach Fic Again
by Fullmetal Wetback
Summary: This is AU to my AU fanfiction, called Not Another Bleach fic. Ichigo becomes a Hollow the night he encounters Rukia,and strives to become the King of Hueco Mundo in order to protect his followers. No Pairing as of yet. M for lang & some adult situations
1. He Who Protects

**A/N: **So this is just something I thought of while trying to write a chapter in my other fic, _Not Another Bleach Fic_. I sorta lost focus and started reading some Ichig-becomes-a-Hollow fics, and I wondered what might happen if that particular scenario happpened during my own timeline in NABF. That errant thought turned into a rabid plot bunny that gnawed away at my concentration until it forced me to write this...you can blame pot for this one. The first chapter will be the same, as well as much of the second one, so if you've already read NABF up to what I've written, then you can skip ahead a bit...otherwise, have fun!

**Disclaimer: **If I owned Bleach, nobody would like it, and there would be no fanfictions about it...so thank whatever high power you believe in that I don't own Bleach.

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Chapter 1: He Who Protects

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"Momma, you stay on that side of the sidwalk, so if a car splashes us, I can protect you!" proclaimed the nine-year-old, orange-haired boy confidently. His wide amber eyes looked up at his mother happily, taking in her honey-colored hair and the eyes that were so very much like his own.

Kurosaki Masaki smiled at her son's words. "You certainly live up to your name, Ichigo, my little protector," she said proudly as she adjusted the umbrella so that it shielded the both of them from the heavy downpour.

Ichigo beamed at her, and they continued the walk back home from the karate dojo he took lessons at. The sky had been gray for two days prior, but it had only begun raining a mere half-hour ago, while he was still practicing his _kata_ safely inside.

As they walked along the Karasu River, Ichigo glanced down, curious to see how much the rain had caused it to swell.

He was surprised when his keen eyes picked out a little girl in a rain poncho standing on the grassy banks of the river, being pounded by the rain. Being the protector that he was, Ichigo shouted out a warning to her before taking off down the steep slope.

"Ichigo!" Masaki cried out, running after him.

Ichigo had made it to the small form in the rain and called to her. She turned and Ichigo found himself staring into a blank expression, devoid of any emotion at all. He heard his mother scream his name, and then the rest was a blur of rain and confusion and spurts of crimson.

When he was finally able to make sense of anything at all, he found himself lying beneath a heavy weight. He glanced down and found his mother's unmistakable hair, flecked with bits of scarlet. He tried to move her, but she was unresponsive.

"Momma?" he asked, panic rising steadily in his scrawny chest. "Mom?" He wriggled his way out from under her body, and started shaking her, even though he saw the red splotch on her blouse. He looked around, not finding the girl who he'd come out to save in the first place, and felt tears stinging his eyes.

"Help!" he cried, even as fat drops began falling from the corners of his eyes. Ichigo clenched his eyes shut while he continued to try and rouse Masaki. As he screamed out once more for aid, he felt every single drop of rain strike his small frame, each one feeling as though it weighed twenty tons.

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For several days afterward, Ichigo would sit at the spot where his mother had died, crouching near the river, trying to understand why such a tragedy could happen. After a day, he'd concluded that if he hadn't gone after that little girl, then his mother would still be alive. After two days, he would realize that his mother's death was his fault. After three days, he would sink into a depression that shouldn't be felt by a child so young.

All the while, he was being watched.

The strangest thing about this person who was watching him was that...well, it wasn't _quite _a person at all. In fact, one would go so far as to call this watcher a black cat with startlingly intelligent golden eyes.

Yoruichi Shihouin sat a few hundred paces away in the comfortable shade of a tree. She'd felt a sharp spike of reiatsu from the river, and had gone to investigate, only arriving in time to witness a Hollow devour the soul of Masaki Kurosaki before vanishing. Now she was staring intently at the bright-haired youth as he grieved.

After another day, a second child entered the scene. She was just as small and scrawny as the boy, except her jagged hair was just a bit longer than his and darker than pitch. At first, the small girl tried to talk to Ichigo, but he wouldn't respond. Then she got mad and started yelling, eventually kicking Ichigo off-balance. He sat there for a moment, then slowly resumed his prior position.

Finally, the girl crouched next to Ichigo and waited with him. For what, she didn't know, but maybe if she was patient, she'd find out eventually.

When darkness began to fall, Ichigo spoke. "Go away, Arisawa." His voice was hoarse, as he hadn't used it in four days, and it sounded hollow, as though someone had struck an empty canteen with a rock.

The girl had been startled when he'd spoken, as she'd been dozing off, but she quickly scrambled to her feet and pointed down at him. "What's your problem, Kurosaki-baka?" she growled at him, anger filling her eyes. "I sat here all day with you so that maybe you wouldn't be such a whiny loser all the time!"

A bit of anger laced his response. "My problem is that I got my mother killed!" He rose to his feet as he said it, and then jabbed his finger at the ground he stood on. "She died right here, on this spot, and I'm the one that caused it." As he spoke, his eyes began to fill with tears, and he blinked them away, angry and embarrassed that he'd allowed himself to cry in front of the girl who continually beat him up. Again.

"Ichigo..." Tatsuki mumbled, eyes wide. She'd known that the wonderful woman who could make her sparring partner's face explode with sunshine had passed, but she hadn't understood the circumstances behind it.

The orange-haired boy abruptly turned and crouched back down again. "Just leave me alone, Tatsuki," she heard him grumble.

Instead of heeding him, Tatsuki copied his movements, putting a tentative hand on his shoulder. "My momma's dead, too," she almost whispered to him. She heard him sniffle, and his head swiveled around, tearful amber eyes meeting saddened hazel ones.

"R-really?" he asked, his voice little more than a breath.

Tatsuki nodded, averting her eyes. "She died when I was really young. I get sad because I can't always remember her anymore. Just warmth and smiles. That's why I've always been so jealous that you have-had such a great mom that came and picked you up from karate lessons."

Ichigo contemplated this new knowledge. Now that he thought about it, he'd never seen Tatsuki's mother, as her father had always picked her up from the dojo. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, losing his mom, so long as he had someone who knew what he was feeling.

He suddenly realized what a jerk he had been to his family. Yuzu and Karin were also Masaki's children, and Dad must be really sad, too. When that thought occured to him, he knew that he had to become strong, so that he could protect them from the same fate that had befallen his mother.

Ichigo stood up, wincing as his sore muscles cramped from disuse, Tatsuki rising with him. To become strong, he needed to train with the strongest he knew...

"I need your help, Tatsuki-"

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Yoruichi watched as the pair walked off, a slow smile parting her feline lips. She'd been considering going over to snap the boy out of it before the girl had shown up, and that was fortunate for all parties involved. It also warmed her heart that her unofficial godson had at least one good friend who would come to look for him.

She gave a small sigh of sorrow at the circumstances that led to it, though. The Hollow had attacked too quickly for even Yoruichi, Goddess of Flash, to do anything to prevent it, and she'd been too far away regardless. Before his retirement to the living world, Kurosaki Isshin had been a good friend, and once she'd met Masaki, there was no way for Yoruichi to dislike the woman. Her death darkened the world significantly.

What's more, though, was the significant development of the child's spiritual pressure upon witnessing his own mother's murder. Before, his reiatsu had been nothing to be ashamed of, seeing as how he _was_ a human, but after the incident, it had skyrocketed to the level of a rank-and-file shinigami just out of the Academy.

But the kicker had to be the fact that Ichigo's reiatsu felt-different, would be the way she'd describe it. It didn't have the particular energy signature of a shinigami, nor was it the chaotic pattern that was unique to Hollows. No, it was something...other, both and neither at the same time. Maybe it had something to do with his parentage, perhaps?

Kisuke would need to be informed of this, she decided. He'd always been fascinated by the Kurosaki children, wondering if they would be able to manifest their own powers, and the oldest of the three seemed to be well on his way to doing just that. The situation concerning his reiatsu might even be explainable.

_I don't have the scientific inquisitiveness of that fruity blonde, but even _I'm_ curious about how this'll turn out,_ she thought to herself as she raced across rooftops to the shoten where she resided. _Life in the world of the living is certainly going to get interesting in the next few years._

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By the time Ichigo and Tatsuki made it to the Kurosaki's home, which also served as Kurosaki Isshin's private practice, night had fallen. As soon as he was inside, Ichigo was assaulted by his fraternal twin sisters, Yuzu and Karin. Yuzu had honey-blonde hair very similar to their mother's, while Karin's hair was black. Isshin himself was a tall man with strong features, hair like night, and a stubble-chased jaw.

"Ichi-nii!" they yelled in tandem, clamping themselves to his arms like a pair of limpets, one with tears flowing freely, while the other's eyes were shut tightly to try and stave off the waterworks.

"Where were you?" Karin demanded as soon as she backed away, very nearly glaring at her older brother.

Yuzu was still sniffling as she said, "We were so worried about you, Ichi-nii. We thought you might've-" She trailed off as she began crying again.

Ichigo felt his heart break just a little more, and his resolve to become strong enough to protect these two solidified. He put a hand on each of his sisters' shoulders and pulled them into an embrace. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I'm so sorry..."

He was surprised when he felt another pair of arms encircle them and looked up to find Tatsuki looking at him with sorrowful, understanding eyes. Ichigo's eyes threatened to spill over with sadness, but he reigned in his emotions and blinked away the tears. He had to be strong; he had to be hard...

He had to protect.


	2. The Protector's Choice

**A/N: **Okay, now read the second chapter, to all those who haven't read up to this point yet.

**Disclaimer: **Still don't own Bleach...

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Chapter 2: The Protector's Choice

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_Jab, parry, palm strike, dodge right, chop kick, dodge left, push kick, duck, leg sweep, right elbow..._

Such were the thoughts of fifteen-year-old Kurosaki Ichigo as he sparred with his best friend, Tatsuki. In the six years since his mother had tragically died, he'd kept to his vow to get stronger.

_...straight punch, low block, leg kick, inside the guard, double strike, uppercut, rising knee..._

He was one of the most skilled martial artists in Karakura, and had gone on from karate to judo, kendo, and even muy thai and western boxing, with Arisawa Tatsuki right at his side. The two had systematically demolished each and every limitation set by their instructors. One had even told them that their growth rate was 'positively terrifying.'

_...spin kick, parry, dodge left, right hook, side kick, jab, straight punch, back-fist, spinning back-fist..._

The most astonishing side-effect of his drive to protect, though, was his increased ability to affect the spirits of the dead. He'd always been able to see them, but now he could interact with them, even help exorcise them and send them on to the afterlife. For two of the six years, Tatsuki had been unable to, but on her eleventh, she'd spotted her first ghost...and promptly punched him in the face.

_...eye roll, dodge right, dodge left, duck, jab, jab, uppercut, palm strike, parry..._

He'd also gained several more friends. Sado Yasutora, otherwise known as Chad, was a giant amongst men, and he was still only fifteen. Half-Japanese, half-Mexican, and a hundred-percent tank, Ichigo met him when he was being held against his will underneath a bridge that spanned Karasu River. Ichigo unleashed hell on the bastards who'd tied him up, and retrieved the coin Chad wore as a necklace. From then on, the two had been comrades in arms and extremely good friends.

_...take-down, submission reversal, ouch, kip up, catch kick, ouch, dodge left, leg sweep..._

Another good friend was named Inoue Orihime, a girl with long, reddish brown hair not dissimilar to his own, and positively bizzare taste buds. It had actually been Tatsuki who'd helped Orihime out the first time. They'd been in middle school, and some girls had tried cutting her hair when Tatsuki beat them down. Tatsuki had vowed to protect Orihime, and Ichigo, being Tatsuki's best friend, felt bound by the same vow.

_...dodge left, straight punch, push-kick, side kick, back fist, spin kick, wait for it...wait for it...HEADBUTT!_

Tatsuki stumbled back, clutching her head in pain. "Ow, you damn strawberry! That hurt!"

Ichigo smirked, fighting the urge to rub his own aching forehead. "Anything goes, Tatsuki. Isn't that what Vale Tudo means? I always thought you wanted to do that for a living."

The girl glared at her friend, who she could tell was trying desperately not to laugh. Loathe she was to admit it, he was right. "That doesn't mean you can just go around headbutting people."

"You're just mad that I caught you off-guard," Ichigo answered, grabbing up a pair of towels and tossing her one. "Let's call it a day, eh?"

"Can't keep up?" Tatsuki shot back with a cocky grin. Though she would never say it aloud, Ichigo had an ass-ton of stamina, much more than her by miles. She knew that he always called a halt to their bouts to save her from feeling inadequate, which she was quietly thankful for.

The pair headed off to the school's showers, and after they'd cleaned the accumulated sweat from their bodies and dried off, they grabbed their duffel bags and headed home.

On the way to the Kurosaki Clinic, they passed by the now-familiar Urahara Shoten, a place where the supernatural occurred on a pretty much daily basis, and waved at the black cat named Yoruichi, who was lazing on the gate.

When she saw the two kids, Yoruichi stretched and leapt gracefully to the pavement in front of them. "Good afternoon, you two," she said in the deep voice her cat form was known for.

"Hey, Yoru-neko," Ichigo responded, crouching down and rubbing her behind the ears. "I almost got that Utsusemi move down-pat, and Tatsuki's been practicing Shakkaho lately." He presented his shin to the cat's golden eyes, where a patch of darkened skin hid beneath his pants.

"Excellent," the cat quipped with a feline smirk. "I'm glad you two are actually training. Tessai will be proud of his new pupil's drive, and I'm quite impressed by you, Ichigo."

"Well, we can't have those masked creatures hurting anyone, now, can we?" Ichigo shot back, scowl settling onto his features. "Tell Geta-Boshi that I still can't make out what the voice is saying, but I can feel _something_ there."

Yoruichi hid her smirk behind a paw. Since the age of eleven, the two children before her had gained enough reiatsu, enough spiritual pressure, to be seriously considered as students by the three exiles who resided at Urahara Shoten.

Neither of them needed any help in hand-to-hand combat (seeing as how the experiences fo their combined martial arts skills far outweighed the traditional Hakuda discipline of the shinigami), but Ichigo had taken to following the Goddess of Flash around, trying to get her to teach him how to move as quickly as she could, and she'd reluctantly begun instructing him in finer aspects of Hoho, the Movement Arts. Tatsuki, meanwhile, had decided that she wanted to learn the Demon Arts from the ex-Kido Corps Commander, Tsukabishi Tessai, and was currently working on the Destructive Arts up to number thirty one, and her Binding Arts weren't too bad, either.

Urahara Kisuke, the owner of the shop, had recently begun working with Ichigo and Tatsuki to try and see if they could manifest a zanpakuto, since Ichigo had already managed to form a Hollow mask, much like the Vizard they'd helped a century ago, and Tatsuki had been unconsciously leaching power from Ichigo's vast wellspring of reiryoku.

"I'll pass on the message," Yoruichi assured him. "Now you two head home. You wouldn't want to miss Yuzu's dinner." She smiled almost affectionately at the pair as they headed off down the street. They made her miss her younger days when it was just her and Kisuke, playing tag in the Shihouin gardens. Friendships like theirs were rarer than a shinigami who could attain Bankai, and much more precious than any Hogyoku could ever be.

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"What the hell did you do to Yama-chan!" exclaimed one of the skater punks. He glared at the orange-haired bastard who'd just brought down his friend with a single kick.

"Shut the hell up!" growled Ichigo, returning the angry stare with interest. His characteristic scowl deterred the others from attacking. "Now, we've got a few questions for you."

He gestured to the girl, who was about a head shorter, but even scarier-looking than her taller counterpart, and she picked up the interrogation. "Question one! What does that look like?" she pointed at a glass vase on the side of the road, which had fallen over, spilling out the water and flowers onto the concrete. "You! Dumb-ass!"

The skater quailed under her accusing look. "M-me?" he squeaked. "Um, well, it looks like a shrine for some kid who died here?"

She gave him a feral grin just before she gave him a haymaker to the jaw, dropping him like a sack of potatos. "Congratulations! You're not as stupid as you look! Next question! Why are those flowers on the ground?"

"Uh, because we knocked the vase over when we were shredding?" the other almost asked, and was rewarded with a roundhouse kick across the face, courtesy of Ichigo.

"Well, aren't you just a bunch of bonafide geniuses," he snarled. "No more questions. But there's one more thing you gotta do."

"Wh-what's that?" one of the fallen skaters asked, then squeaked in absolute terror as the ghostly figure of a young girl slowly materialized between Ichigo and Tatsuki.

"Apologize, you thoughtless bastards!" Ichigo roared, jabbing a thumb toward the ghost, who floated silently a few inches above the pavement.

"Ahh!" screamed the skaters, grabbing their fallen comrades as they retreated far away from the two demons and their ghost. "We're sorry! We're sorry!" Ichigo, Tatsuki, and the spirit could hear their apologies as they faded away into the distance.

When the skaters could no longer be heard, the ghost turned to the two with a grateful smile. "Thank you both," she said shyly.

"Don't worry about it," Ichigo answered, his scowl softening into a much gentler expression that very few people had seen. "It's time for you to move on, though, kid." The girl began to look nervous, but Ichigo placed a gentle hand on her head, ruffling her dark hair. "Don't worry, you'll be perfectly fine up there. I'll make sure of it, okay?"

"Okay," the girl finally relented, and Ichigo gave her a reassuring smile as his palm glowed white.

"Konso," he murmured, moving his hand to her forehead. Her form flashed brightly before vanishing into particles of light, a jet-black swallow-tail butterfly fluttering wildly away.

He turned to Tatsuki, who was giving him an uncharacteristically warm smile. "What?" he asked suspiciously.

Tatsuki schooled her features into an indifferent expression before tapping her watch. "You're gonna be late," she deadpanned, and he looked at his own watch- 5:51 p.m.

"Ah, damn it," Ichigo grunted, spinning on his heel and rushing off down the street. Tatsuki shook her head with a grin before racing after him. She loved her father dearly, but if it was a choice between his cooking and Kurosaki Yuzu's, there was no contest whatsoever.

Ichigo skidded to a halt in front of the Kurosaki Clinic and flung open the door, only to be met with a size ten sandal to the face. He staggered back, keeping one hand clutched tightly to the ankle attached to the foot and whipped his attacker around, slamming them into a nearby lightpost.

"Did you have an oxygen-deficiency when you were in the womb, Goat-Face?" he shouted at the semi-conscious form of Kurosaki Isshin, who was still wrapped around the pole.

Isshin untangled himself and struck a pose. "My son! How else will you keep your edge if you don't stay on your toes because of the famous Daddy-Style Surprise-Attack Mega Kick!" He slumped down almost directly afterward, revealing Tatsuki, her hand still in position from her karate chop to Isshin's neck.

"He _does_ spar against me everyday, you know," she said, stepping over his body and walking into the house as though she owned it, and none of the males in the family would dare say otherwise. 'Cause if they did...

"Tatsu-nee!" Yuzu called, waving from her position at the stove. "Did you beat Ichi-nii up again today?"

Tatsuki gave the younger girl a warm, if cocky, grin as she answered, "Of course, Yuzu. Why would today be different from any other day?"

Ichigo grumbled under his breath, but didn't call her out on it audibly. "Call us when dinner's ready, okay, Yuzu?"

"Okay, Ichi-nii," she answered, her motherly smile up in a heartbeat as she watched Ichigo and Tatsuki tromp up the stairs to do their homework. Despite the fact that their forte was physical rather than mental, the pair _did_ have much higher-than-average brainpower to match their brute strength.

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An hour later found the two back in Ichigo's room after a wonderful Yuzu-cooked meal. Ichigo was reclining in his chair, feet propped up on the desk where his completed homework sat neatly piled, while Tatsuki lounged on his bed, taking a well-deserved rest after a hard day's work.

"Hey, Berry?" Tatsuki said lazily. When Ichigo grunted to let her know he was listening, she continued, "Do you ever wonder where you send those spirits when you bury their souls?"

Ichigo shrugged, planting his feet back on the wood paneling of the floor as he sat up straighter. "Sometimes," he admitted. "Sometimes I wonder if those ghosts ever meet Mom up there, and what the afterlife is like."

Tatsuki glanced at her long-time friend, taking in his somber expression and wondering for what had to be the millionth time what had happened to the little boy with the bright orange hair and the even more brilliant smile who she used to beat up back when they were children.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a strange-looking spirit, who stepped into Ichigo's room through the window, landing lightly on Ichigo's desk and hopping down to the floor.

She was very short, probably only a few inches taller than Yuzu and Karin, wearing a black kimono and hakama held up by a white obi. Tucked into the sash was a katana with a reddish hilt-wrap and two tassels hanging from the pommel, with a stylized rectangular tsuba.

Paying no attention to the room's occupants, the black-haired girl glanced around with her deep violet eyes, muttering, "It's close...I can feel it."

She was interrupted from her thoughts by a solid kick to the ass, which dropped her on her face. The spirit sputtered a bit as she got her feet under her, surprise written quite clearly on her almost doll-like features.

"What the hell are you doing, sneaking into peoples' houses!" Tatsuki, who had been the one to kick the ghost, shouted, pointing an accusing finger at her. "You're obviously a spirit, so why don't you do your little phasing thing and go play samurai somewhere else before this big idiot exorcises you."

Ichigo's eyebrow twitched, but he otherwise remained silent.

The ghost's eyes widened further. "You-you two can see me?" she asked, rubbing her bottom"_and_ interact physically with me...you must be very powerful spiritually. Unfortunately, there's a Hollow in the area, and my duty as a shinigami requires me to slay it."

Ichigo turned to Tatsuki in confusion, and she shrugged. "Hey, little girl, what's all this about shinigami and slaying Hollows?" he asked.

"My name is Kuchiki Rukia," growled the tiny ghost, a vein throbbing in her temple, "and I can assure you,_ little boy_, that I am much, _much_ older than you." She straightened her kimono and, in a more calm voice, continued on. "I am a shinigami, a death god, whose main duty is to ferry human souls to the afterlife, which is known as Soul Society."

"So," interrupted Ichigo, a hopeful look on his face, "there's actually an afterlife? A place to go when we die?" Tatsuki didn't fail to understand what was going on in her friend's head; if there was a place called Soul Society, chances were that Kurosaki Masaki would be there.

"Indeed," Kuchiki Rukia said, "but if a human soul stays too long, if their Chain of Fate erodes completely, then they become a Hollow, a creature who's heart has become lost. They feed on

other souls to continue their existence. Hollows are attracted to large amounts of spiritual energy, and you two have a very high amount of that. The secondary duty of a shinigami is to purify these creatures by slaying them with our zanpakuto, our Soul Cutter." She patted the blade at her hip almost affectionately.

"These Hollows," Ichigo said, "they have big white masks on, don't they? And a big hole in their chests?" At Rukia's startled nod, Ichigo's frown deepened. He'd encountered creatures such as these before, and it had taken all the skills he possessed as both a martial artist and an exorcist to take the demonic things out of commission.

"How do you know this information?" asked the diminutive shinigami, wondering just how spiritually powerful these two were.

Tatsuki was about to respond when a distant, horrifyingly evil scream interrupted her thoughts. Judging by the hardening of his eyes, Ichigo had heard it, too. "It's the Hollow you're looking for," Tatsuki said to Rukia before turning to her friend. "I don't think you can take this one, Ichigo. It's a lot stronger than the last one."

"Last one?" wondered Rukia aloud before nearly being trampled by the two human teenagers as they started down the stairs. "Hey, wait a minute! You can't just go out and expect to fight a Hollow by yourselves! You're just humans!"

A massive explosion rocked the house that doubled as a family clinic, causing Tatsuki to nearly lose her balance and take a header down the stairs. Luckily, Ichigo had been just ahead of her and when she slammed into him, he was the one to take the most damage when they tumbled down the staircase.

Groaning, he glanced up and saw something that made his blood turn to ice. A creature taller than his entire house, with a jet-black body and a white, fish-like mask was standing in a large hole in the side of his living room. But the Hollow wasn't what was so terrifying. His goofy, idiotic father lay bleeding in the rubble, and his twin sisters were clutched in each of the Hollow's hands.

Ichigo's eyes saw red, and he was suddenly up, clutching at the air above his head before _pulling_, clawing down across his face with his right hand. To Rukia's astonishment, white reishi coalesced where he'd motioned, forming a mask that looked almost like a canine's skull but for the three red slash marks that cut vertically down across the left eye-hole and down its snout.

"**I hate using this," **came the double-toned voice of Kurosaki Ichigo just before he kicked off the ground, swinging his foot up and into the side of the Hollow's head, pushing it out of the hole and causing it to release its grip on the two girls it had been about to consume.

"**Tatsuki!"**

"I'm on it!" she shouted, darting forward to catch Yuzu and Karin before they hit the ground. Rukia hurried out of the ruined home to watch as the crazy, orange-haired human with a Hollow mask fought with the creature she'd been sent to kill.

Despite being smaller and more agile than the Hollow, Ichigo was getting hit far too often, and grunted in angered pain as three enormous claws sank into his belly, throwing him into a store-front. The mask, which he'd learned to manifest several years ago, allowed him an extreme boost to his physical capabilities as well as a few tricks he'd learned along the way, but this Hollow, as the tiny death god had called it, was quite simply too powerful for even his enhanced attacks.

"Hado 4: Byakurai!" came a familiar voice from behind, followed by a thin stream of white lightning that slammed into the Hollow, sending it stumbling back a few paces. Ichigo extricated himself from the rubble and turned to find Tatsuki with her index and middle fingers pointed at the Hollow, smoking slightly from the recent spellcasting.

"**Thanks,"** he said gratefully before facing the Hollow once more. Tatsuki readied herself for another spell, but was dismayed to see that the beast seemed more annoyed than injured by her Byakurai. She'd have to use a stronger technique if she wanted to do any damage.

She started up another spell, using the incantation to bring it up to full power. "Oh, ye Lord, mask of flesh and blood, all creations of the universe, fluttering of wings..."

"Wh-what are you two?" asked Rukia as she slowly drew her zanpakuto, not sure which combatant to attack.

"...ye who bears the name of man! Scorching heat and disorder..."

Ichigo turned, and Rukia would've sworn that the mask's lupine mouth grew a few teeth as he said, **"Us?" **and chuckled, **"We're this bastard's worst nightmare."**

And then he _moved_.

"...evolve the transposition of the southern sea barrier. Hado 31: Shakkaho!"

_That was shunpo,_ Rukia thought to herself as the masked human boy reappeared in a burst of speed just in time to slam his heel into the Hollow's neck in a textbook axe-kick before dodging out of the way just before an explosion of red rocked the Hollow's form. It was sent flying down the street, and as it got up, heavy lacerations were evident all down its front.

Tatsuki grinned at the successful Red Flame Cannon spell; she hadn't expected it to work as well as it did. She was surprised when one of the creature's arms suddenly elongated with frightening speed, and felt a strange pressure on her gut. She looked down and saw the creature's claw partially embedded in her lower abdomen, dark liquid dripping to the concrete.

_What the-? _were her last thoughts before the Hollow yanked its hand out of her, causing a sudden drop in blood pressure and subsequent unconsciousness.

Before either Ichigo or the shinigami woman could react, the Hollow whipped his extended appendage around, smacking Ichigo into a nearby building and collapsing the wall down upon the teenager's body.

Ichigo felt as though every bone in his body had been broken a hundred times, and when he tried to breathe, nothing would come. His chest convulsed, and blood spattered from his mouth. He watched in horror as the monster opened its mouth, where a sphere of red light gathered.

_Cero,_ he thought almost idly in the back of his mind. The rest of it was trying to cope with the ungodly amount of pain his body was experiencing. It was his last thought as a living soul.

The energy blast ripped through the night, creating a moderate explosion and decimating the pile of rubble Ichigo was buried under, killing his already dying body.

Rukia looked on in horror. She had failed in her duties as a shinigami. Ukitake-taicho had entrusted the lives of all the humans (no matter how riddiculously overpowered some might be) in Karakura Town, and she had failed to do so on her fist night on the job.

Tatsuki, meanwhile, was simultaneously trying to stave off pain-inflicted unconsciousness and passing out due to the shock of watching her best friend be destroyed by one of the masked creatures they had fought against together.

As she watched, the creature, the Hollow as the shinigami had called it, turned toward the crater formed by its energy blast in curiosity. Tatsuki, in a detached sort of way, felt compelled to see what had caused such a reaction and then passed out from having one too many shocks.

Ichigo felt strange. Or rather, more strange than he normally felt. One moment, he'd been in the most amount of pain he'd ever been in, so agonizing that it was emblazoned into his psyche forever. The next, he felt nothing at all.

It was frighteningly disorienting, to be honest.

He looked around and noticed that the Hollow was looking at him wierdly, as were Rukia and Tatsuki, at least, until the latter fainted. Glancing down at himself, he understood her reaction, almost succumbing and following in Tatsuki's footsteps.

There, in the center of his chest, was a rather short chain attached to the center of his sternum, hanging down to somewhere around his navel before ending abruptly at a broken link. With a suddenness that nearly struck him down, he realized that he was, in fact, dead.

He'd done it again. Ichigo, One who Protects, had failed in his lifelong quest to protect those he held dear to him. Tatsuki was lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. With her out of the picture, the shinigami girl would be sure to fall soon. And with no shinigami to protect them, the Hollow would devour his sisters and father.

Unbeknownst to him, the chain attached to his chest began to seemingly corrode at a riddiculous rate, almost as though it were eating away at itself...

Rukia steeled herself; she would mourn the death of this human boy later. Now, she had a duty to uphold. She drew her zanpakuto and called out, "Dance, Sode no Shirayuki!" while spinning it in a clockwise circle.

As it spun, her reiatsu flashed up into a visible aura around her, and the blade lengthened as it became the purest white. The hilt and guard followed suit, and as the white reached the cap, a long, white tassel flew out of the end.

"Now you will perish, demon," she spoke in a low voice.

Before she could call out her first and last attack, she-and the Hollow-were distracted by a second, more powerful blast of spiritual pressure close by.

Rukia turned her eyes toward where Ichigo had perished and saw him hunched over, his head in his hands and a howl of intense pain ripping from his lips as a bright blue aura sprang up about him. With a start, the diminutive shinigami realized that his Chain of Fate was gone, and his Soul Sleep was where the reiatsu was pouring from.

_What the hell? How could someone change into a Hollow so quickly! _Then, after a moment's pause..._Idiot!_ she cursed herself. _I should have performed _konso _upon the recently deceased before engaging in battle with the Hollow. How can I mess this up anymore?_ Poor Rukia. She didn't know that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

As she sprang forward, intending to bury the boy's soul, the aura sprang up higher into the night sky, shrouding the moon with its vastness. It burned so brightly that Rukia had to shield her eyes against it.

Then, suddenly, the reiatsu simply vanished. Gone without a trace. Rukia looked over and saw a strange sight.

Where Ichigo's ghost had stood was a Hollow. But it was unlike any Hollow Rukia had ever seen. The mask was in the shape of a canine's visage, with long ears and two dark blue streaks of color that cut down through his eye and along his snout. His body was also canid in appearance, about the size of a Great Dane, but its coat was shaggy and bright orange, with long, thin segments of interlocking bone following along its spine to the tip of its tail. The Hollow's paws were all encased in segmented bone armor with dangerously sharp-looking claws tipping them.

The first Hollow to appear roared angrily at the newer one, but Hollow-Ichigo howled defiantly right back, widening its forepaws and baring its teeth menacingly.

Fishbone D. was quite the experienced Hollow. While he hadn't undergone the transformation that would mark his ascension into the ranks of the Menos Grande, he was very close. He'd had his share of battles, and he could feel literally no amount of spiritual energy from the new Hollow before him and made the choice that this newbie wasn't worth the bother. The fish-like Hollow instead spotted Yuzu and Karin laying withing arm's reach. So he took the easier meal.

At least, he tried to, anyway. Before his clawed hands came near the two girls, he was intercepted by the dog-like Hollow standing over them almost protectively, snapping at Fisbone angrily.

Well, this was unexpected. Before Fishbone could contemplate this further, Ichigo made his move.

Ichigo didn't know much about what was going on. He had opened his eyes and had seen the other Hollow. Had tasted its reiatsu in the air around him. He'd also tasted several other entities near him. The black-clad figure's energy was incredibly enticing, but the other three seemed...familiar to him.

He noticed as the other Hollow turned toward two of the familiar beings, and an incredibly overpowering instinct rose up within him.

Ichigo didn't know why, but he knew he had to stop that Hollow from touching the two females on the ground. So he leapt forward, stopping the Hollow's advance, and then immediately shooting forward to attack.

Fishbone leapt back to avoid the rabid new Hollow quickly and lengthened his arm, bringing his clawed fingers together to form a spearhead, but Ichigo dodged out of the way with incredible agility and made a running jump forward.

Landing on Fishbone's shoulder, Ichigo's instinct told him to attack the mask. So he clamped his jaws down onto the bony mask and applied pressure, shattering it instantly. He felt the creature instantly start to dissipate, and almost unconsciously began to draw in the spirit particles released by it.

A hunger Ichigo had not even registered before then was sated somewhat, but he still was acutely aware of it, clawing and growling in his belly. Slowly, he turned back to the females and began walking toward them slowly.

"Tsugi no Mai: Hakuren!" a femine voice shouted, and Ichigo leapt away just in time to avoid a wave of icy energy. Turning, he faced the woman in black, who was holding a white blade at him.

Rukia decided that she would be demoted to the lowest rank of fourth division and ordered to clean the sewers for the rest of her life right around the time the new Hollow had absorbed the one who'd killed it in the first place. But when the victorious beast rounded on the two young human girls, Rukia steeled herself and attacked, thinking that she would be damned if she would let any other souls be lost that night.

The Hollow, which was so reminiscent of a Golden Retriever, managed to dodge her White Wave and turned to face her, once more standing over the two girls. It struck Rukia as odd, the way he seemed to almost be protecting them from her.

What was the deal with this kid-no! She had to remind herself that this wasn't the strange, orange-haired boy who so resembled her former vice-captain. It was now a Hollow, one that had come about because she had failed in her duty.

So she readied herself and performed her First Dance. "Some no Mai: Tsukishiro!"

Ichigo became aware of a sharp decline in the air around him and surged forward instinctively just as a burst of energy erupted behind him. His brief glance told him that he'd narrowly avoided becoming trapped within a pillar of solid ice several dozen feet tall, which suddenly burst apart violently.

This black-clad creature was too powerful for him, Ichigo knew deep in his bones. This did not stop him from striking back. No one would call Kurosaki Ichigo the human very cautious, and it seems as though Ichigo the Hollow was no different.

He remembered some things, but it was vague, more like a feeling than a memory, a feeling a power flowing through his body. So he replicated it, sending vast amounts of energy to his mouth.

It coalesced there as a sphere of deep blue, and he let it fly, creating a beam of destructive force that careened toward the black-clad figure.

Rukia had only a split-second to act, but act she did. Training ingrained into her by countless hours of practice swam the surface of her mind, and she raised her arm, letting her reiatsu shoot to her palm.

"Hado 33: Sokatsui!" A pale blue burst of flame erupted from her palm and collided with Ichigo's _cero_ blast, causing the two attacks to detonate and blow a wave of smoke across the impromptu battlefield.

Even in such a primal state, Ichigo knew that he would not be able to win against this creature. That had been his most powerful attack, and he sensed that the small being was still hiding its true power.

So he turned, willing himself away from this place, and ran. He wasn't quite aware of when his surroundings stopped being the familiar streets of Karakura and became an oppressive dark force that beat down on his conscious mind viciously.

Eventually, his feet touched something more giving than the path he'd been doggedly following. Looking around, he found himself in a desert of sand that stretched for as far as he could see, bleached white by the full moon which hung in the night sky that Ichigo knew in his heart of hearts was eternal and absolute.

He breathed in deeply, feeling the spirit particles in the atmosphere, and took off. He knew not what this world was, but he had an insane feeling that he would one day rule this land of endless night and infinite desert.

**A/N: **So that's that, and if you like it, hate it, or just wanna rap about God, feel free to drop a review.


	3. Admission of Defeat

Hey, everyone. So...I've been thinking about this for a very long time, and I've finally come to the conclusion that I can't keep writing fanfiction at the present time. There's too much bullshit going on in my life right now, and I have to deal with all of that before I can even think about frolicking in the fields of fandoms. Maybe sometime in the future, I'll start writing some more, but as of right now, it's just not an option.

Please don't hate me, even though it's fully in your rights to do so. I just had a very close relative pass on, which isn't reason enough to be deleting my profile, but coupled with the fact that my oldest and dearest friend killed himself on Valentine's Day...well, you get the idea.

To all of you who have favorited, followed, or reviewed my stories, thank you. Thank you _so_ much for all the wonderful things and constructive criticisms you've offered me. Also, I apologize with all my heart that I won't be able to continue these tales that you enjoyed, or that I might have disappointed you with this news.

On that note, I would be fully willing to let any of you take the helm and adopt any of my stories. I would hate for my fanfics to die; I can't keep up with them, but I put a lot of effort into some of them, while others have just begun, and it breaks my heart that I won't be the one to finish them.

If anyone wants to adopt, please PM me so I can check out your own writing. Be warned, some of these fics have minds of their own, and are very difficult to wrestle into submission; trust me, I know from experience.

Other than that, I wish all of you luck in life,

Fullmetal Wetback


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